Anti racist groups said the broadcaster was giving legitimacy to discredited “pseudo science” which was “irresponsible”.

The first programme, Race: Science's Last Taboo, will see Rageh Omaar, a presenter on the arabic news channel Al-Jazeera, question scientists about Nobel Prize winning James Watson's claims that black people are less intelligent than other races.

In the documentary Psychology professor Richard Lynn from the University of Ulster will say there is a global "league table", using evidence from IQ tests, to claim that intelligence is linked to race, with north-east Asians in the top tier and Australian aborigines at the bottom. He says on the programme that African IQs “don’t rise up to the same level as Europeans”.

British born psychology professor J Philippe Rushton is also interviewed on the programme.

He claims the differences between black and white and East Asian brains is due to general intelligence.

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He believes that while women have smaller brain sizes as men, they are just as intelligent as men, but that black people have smaller brain sizes than white people but are not as intelligent as white people.

Promoting the season, Channel 4 has also altered photos of well-known figures such as Baroness Thatcher, the Beatles and US President Barack Obama to change their racial appearances.

The decision to air the programmes during Black History Month has also been criticised.

Ged Grebby, the head of Show Racism The Red Card said: "To broadcast something as controversial is this during Black History month is the absolute antithesis of why we have it. It's about the idea of combating racism, not giving racists a platform."

Paul Meszaros, from Hope not Hate, added: “This isn’t science, this is pseudoscience. It's about giving legitimacy to discredited theories, which is dressed up in language of science which people are more likely to believe.

“It's utterly irresponsible”, he said. “We have seen the rise of racist far-right fascist groups, and by airing programmes that say racism has a scientific basis, it becomes acceptable.”

Oona King, Channel 4's head of diversity and former Labour MP, said the programme shows conclusively "that you cannot link race to IQ".

Omaar also said in a clip of the show that views society found offensive "are not defeated by being ignored".

The show also comes in the wake of the Strictly Come Dancing race row and the decision to allow BNP leader Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time.

King – who was brought in following the Shilpa Shetty race row on Celebrity Big Brother- admitted she was "slightly nervous" at the outset as race issues can range from being "vaguely controversial to incendiary".

King was asked about Strictly host Bruce Forsyth's views that the nation should treat Anton Du Beke's "slip-up" of calling his dance partner Laila Rouass a "Paki" more light-heartedly.

The diversity boss said that when Forsyth was growing up, people believed that race was an indicator of intelligence.

She said: "What's surprising is how those views directly impact us today and how those views persist."

She continued: "Sweeping racist views and opinions under the carpet will not make those views go away."

"My view is that we need to open up the terms of the debate, not close it down. I think there's room for people questioning people's responses to the debate", she said.

Another show in the series called How Racist Are You? will take 30 British volunteers to show how everyone can be susceptible to bigotry, while Is It Better To Be Mixed Race? will challenge beliefs about racial purity.

Channel 4 is also planning a programme examining a trend for "deracialisation" surgery, through the stories of people who go to extreme lengths to make their bodies look more Western.

The season also puts race issues in a historical context with its show The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret.

It looks at how, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, scientists were so fascinated by race that thousands of "exotic" people from around the world were being put on display in "zoos" as scientific demonstrations of racial difference.

It tells the story of Ota Benga, a Batwa pygmy from the Belgian Congo, who was first put on display at the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair and then the Bronx Zoo where he was labelled as the 'missing link'.

The film also looks at how "pseudoscience" helped attempts to legitimise the horrors of Nazi Germany.

A Channel 4 spokesperson said: "This new season of programmes sets out to explode some of the myths about race and science and to cast light on the history and consequences of scientific racism.

"The Season debunks the myths about science and race – science has been misused to legitimise racist beliefs and practices – these programmes are the antidote to that.

"Season roundly dismisses the ideas: that race is a predictor of intelligence; that racial purity has scientific benefits and that any one race is superior to another."

Channel 4's Race: Science's Last Taboo season of documentaries begins on October 26